What would a President Harris mean for Europe?
The presumed new Democratic nominee would hold the line on NATO and Ukraine, but she comes from a less Atlanticist generation than Biden.
I’m in the US this week, visiting friends and family. It is, to say the least, an interesting time to be here. The atmosphere is the most tense I’ve ever seen it - after a decade of things coming to a steady boil. This country is a powder keg ready to explode, and everywhere you look there are ‘last days of Rome’ vibes. In the Northeast region where I’m from, people seem absolutely despondent - and extremely scared. But there has been a distinct shift in the mood since yesterday’s announcement by President Biden that he is stepping aside and will not accept the Democratic Party’s nomination to be their candidate for president. For the first time in two months, people in this part of the country are allowing themselves to feel some hope. I don’t know a single person who was disappointed by yesterday’s news. But I also don’t know a single person who is confident that Kamala Harris can beat Donald Trump in November.
My friends and contacts in Europe, meanwhile, have reacted with uniform relief to yesterday’s news. I heard the scepticism and and unease with Biden’s age much earlier and uniformly in Europe than among Democrats in the US, and I don’t know a single European who didn’t want him to retire because they were worried he could not beat Trump. So now that they’ve gotten their wish, what are Europeans making of the news? And how would a Harris presidency differ from the Biden presidency we’ve had over the past four years?